You can probably think of older analog technologies that nudged us out of our collective deep thought long before the iPhone moved the seat of human agency from mind and soul to fingertip. That’s right. I’m looking at you, TV remote.

I have no data, no research, not even a dodgy web link, but I can’t help feel everything went sideways for the human race when we could flick between four or five channels without even burning four or five calories to haul ourselves up out of the couch and all the way across the room to turn a dial.

Dials are what we had instead of Siri and Alexa, kids. And they worked every goddamn time. You even got a little cardio bump from using them because in the olden days they were always on the far side of the room.

But even as our technology accelerated, so did our imaginations. If you bother to sit through a much-loved TV show of your childhood — OK, my childhood — let's say Thunderbirds, you’ll be horrified at just how slowly it moves.

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I used to keep a bucket by the front door. No. Not that sort of bucket, you moron. That bucket we kept on the coffee table in the lounge room of the share house, every share house, I Iived in. No, this other bucket came later, after marriage and children and the sudden but related decline in my readily available funds.This bucket was my savings plan.Every time I’d come home with coins in my pocket I’d toss them in there. It was a small, red plastic pail of the sort you’d take to the beach to make a sandcastle with children. If I did nothing to curate the stream of coinage, the bucket would usually top out at somewhere around seven or eight hundred dollars. But if I was smart and culled the fifty cent pieces, the final value could get up near twelve or even thirteen hundred bucks. Those old fifties seemed to offer the least value for volume.I’d fill that bucket on average every nine months. It was a great way to pay for Christmas.But I have not filled my bucket in many years. This is not a metaphor.I just don’t get that many coins anymore...

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The symptom I've noticed is the office snack stash. You know, the one on the spare desk or on top of the filing cabinets with a change jar and some plastic tubs with chips, chocolate bars and maybe a little fridge with some fizzy stuff in it.

I've noticed that these days all the stashes I see have IOU sheets where people record escalating amounts they owe and then settle up every payday or two. The change jars now have just the barest scatter of coins except for payday when they're suddenly stuffed with notes.

insomniac asserts...

Posted February 20

In our office we had a charity run box with chips and chocolate bars but in the end they gave up because so few had coins with which to purchase the items.

she_jedi mutters...

Posted February 20

Our office does a collection each month for our charity of the month, and thankfully they give us a couple of days notice that it's that time of the month again because I have to make a special effort to go find cash money to donate EVERY SINGLE TIME.

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I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover a structural inequity fashioned into the very apparel with which our ladies must enclothe themselves.

But I am also quietly relieved, having been originally quite concerned that the repeal of stern but uncompromising legislation prohibiting the escape of lady legs into the public realm would lead to all manner of distraction for any poor fellow momentarily deflected from his daily course by some unexpected encounter with the female undercarriage.

From the Archives of the Bounders Club. Minutes and Proceedings of an extraordinary meeting to address the threat of lady pants.

Gentlemen, it has recently come to my attention that lady pants do not have pockets.

9 Responses to ‘An Extraordinary Meeting of the Bounders Club’

Posted February 12

When the revolution happens, the designers and tailors who were complicit with the patriarchy and denied us wimminfolk functional pockets in our ladypants will be the first to meet the firing squads.

There are no words to adequately describe the frustration of pants sans pockets, or the deep resentment we feel toward menpants with their voluminous and mandatory pockets, or the rage we feel when we're asked why we cart such enormous handbags with us everywhere we go. Honestly, I can't dress for work or a night out without bringing along some kind of reticule to hold my phone, wallet and keys. Total bullshit.

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Oi..Oi!!!!!!!! you lot, I must say gentlemen…and those of the coven. It is with a rather ample drop of trepidation I might add, for I find that trousers, pants, items out of lycra and all other manner of the fem fatal ensemble cladding thee coven members shipped lower extremities are for specific scientifica based or derived factoids. For without exposing myself too much, Its rather easy to define the benefits and you might say drawbacks.
Imagine no pocket bulges and optically tracking the opposite form, boning up and having naught pockets with which to have festooned within survival equipment and thus shrouding the expanding moment. I mean, how might one adjust one’s self in complete anonymity, or for that matter imagine the primary axels left and right wheels being somewhat exposed….my bad, I remember that being a seventies thing and the resulting lower than expected birth-rates.

Where was I?............ Oh yes, afternoons, evening and mornings wandering down the street with your hand in the pocket of the other half, obviously for no other reason than to aid their balance and protect them from nefarious persons. Ummm, “Cough’ not sure if that still PC even the days. How would it be if they worked out that tackle room on hot days has a distinct advantage, might they also discover the wonders of choosing which side you might “ dress on” that ability to swing left or right..such a wondrous thing.

And…… before any objectioners start their coven orientated dribble, I’ll have all know, its known, legislated in our minutes and constitution that giving them the choice is detrimental to male eyesight!.. Jesus…I mean. Imagine not being able to tail gate, look at the swanky Ferrari’s back end and only discover its clad in pockets, laden with rather pretty, but as we know ultimately useless stuff and the chassis is obscured. GAWD I WOULD BLOODY WELL HATE THAT.

I don’t think we should allow them stitched, it’s a slippery slope that one and far better that we have them continued as a mere thought of, built for but not with accessory never to be added.

NBlob ducks in to say...

Posted February 13

Rumour has it Mz Lorna Jane has been nominated for an Order of Australia, for packaging.

Posted February 13

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Posted February 13

I was with my granddaughter and there was some thing she wanted me to hold, so I said put it in your pocket, and... there was no pocket. I recall thinking that even young girls can't have pockets in their lady pants.

she_jedi has opinions thus...

Posted February 14

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Belatedly back from my mission. I can confirm that the Ladies Clothing Manufacturers Union carried a motion put forth by the Pants sub branch.
The motion stated

(i) This meeting calls on all members to enforce a ban on the application of pockets or other such deviations to female pants or pants-like clothing
(ii) This meeting recognises the efforts of the Bounders Club in exposing the corrupt practices of the imperialist oppressors who are demanding pockets.
(iii) This meeting commends the sacrifice of Mr Havock of the Bounders Club in looking at prototypes of be-pocketed female pants.
(iv) This meeting calls on manufacturers to cease their war on women and allow our female comrades to be pockets free.

The motion was unanimously carried at industry - wide workplace meetings of the members. And then we all fucked off to the pub and listened to Redgum and Billy Bragg songs.
.

Well, this sucks. I just bought an ergonomic keyboard and before it even arrives the whole field of ergonomics is revealed to be a skeevy wangboozle as crooked as mouthful of Dickensian urchin teeth.

I don’t much care that companies and governments might be wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a year on dodgy “ergonomic chairs, keyboards and consultants”, as reported by Fairfax Media yesterday.

But I care heaps that I might have just wasted $39 on a discount Microsoft ergonomic keyboard from the Beast of Bezos and it may not immediately cure my crippling minor discomfort from typing too much.

Posted October 3

I swear by the ergonomic keyboard. The rest of it I'm sure can easily be explained away by the need to keep moving.

After all, I don't just sit on the couch for hours on end in the same position. Eventually I move just to ensure that I can drink beer and eat salted pig nibbles. Why would the work environment be any different?

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I have had a horrible realisation. I don’t need a new iPhone. But it’s worse than that. I don’t need a new phone of any sort. If I was rocking a Samsung, or Pixel or any smart phone released in the last four or five years, as long as I could replace the battery … I wouldn’t need to upgrade.

This is an awful, shameful thing to know about yourself, but I had been creeping up on awareness for a while now.

The eye-watering price tag for the latest fondle slabs from the blessed fruit company did surely hurry me along to revelation, but it was an instance of calculated generosity that pushed me over.

I replaced the battery on my old iPhone 6S Plus a week ago. With nearly 750 charging cycles on the clock it was, as the iMinion from the Genius Bar told me, “about to be consumed”. They sounded both horrified and impressed by that. Apparently not many batteries survive in the wild long enough to be “consumed”.

On the upside though, it frees up some money to buy a new iPad Pro. My curent iPad is nearly seven years old. I figure to retire it to the kitchen.

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me LG G6 fkn ROCKS..then again. I ONLY bought it cos a got a free LG TV in the deal. BUT. I still believe it kicks the skany fkn arse of the POXY TOOO FKN DEAR RIP YA OFF BASTARD THATS FKN STEVE POX HEAD JOBS!!

I know qualoity when I see iot. I should, I look at me self every day iin the mirros and just go....FKN WOW!...THATS GOOOOOD!!

Respond to 'I have let myself down. I have let Apple down'

"I’m pretty sure the only reason I don’t have a perfect five star Uber rating is because sometimes people get me and Nick Earls mixed up and Nick is notorious for getting underpants-literally-on-his-head drunk and that Uber guy who gave me less than five stars must have had Nick in the back seat, drunk as a lord, undies on his bonce, and sweaty buttcheeks smearing up the leatherette interior."

You might probably not be surprised to learn that our lawyers insisted I get Nick's okeldokely for this.

1 Responses to ‘My sweaty buttcheeks look nothing like Nick Earls'’

Uber were watching blackmirror one night and got excited didn't they? "those dirty customers always rating down our drivers with their high expectations and causing us grief with follow up customer calls. Well, we'll show them"